20 January 2019

There is a long-standing debate on the role, means, and end goals of intelligence. Is dissemination the purpose? Do ownership issues come into play between intelligence and law enforcement only in the event of success or failure? Such issues that bedevil the current debate are self-defeating and certainly not in consonance with the challenges that India faces. Across the world, intelligence agencies have restructured themselves to be embedded in operational work - it is no longer about 'them' and 'us'. Instead, they focus on building synergies, enhancing their technological wherewithal, and working out the best processes that can deliver the greatest advantages. For this to take place in India, there must be better dialogue between various arms of the security apparatus and serious thinking on how best to use available resources and anchoring new technologies.

The events of 26/11 provide an instructive backdrop to discuss the range of technologies that allow a state to prepare for similar security eventualities. Institutional changes are important, particularly in the interplay between intelligence and executive policing, to absorb and benefit from these technologies. This is not to critique the way events were handled in 2008, nor an attempt to cover every aspect related to it. Instead, it is a look at expanding the current discourse on the possibility of such a situation recurring, and India's preparedness to meet threats with all the resources at its command. This article will limit itself to the technologies that are available to India today, and will presuppose the development of advances in big data analytics and Artificial Intelligence (AI).

ISLAMABAD: The US' demand for maintaining long-term military bases in Afghanistan has emerged as a sticking point in talks with the Taliban to end the 17-year-long war in the country, according to a media report here.

The report came as the US special representative for Afghanistan reconciliation, Zalmay Khalilzad, stepped up efforts to bring the Taliban to negotiations, with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Russia and Iran involved in discussions with the Taliban over the past few months.

The Express Tribune reported quoting officials that the US in return of its demand would provide substantial financial assistance for the reconstruction and rehabilitation of Afghanistan in the post-peace deal.

Although the Taliban have repeatedly demanded complete withdrawal of the US forces from Afghanistan, they showed an inclination to discuss the suggestion of the US maintaining certain bases in the recent negotiations held in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The visit by Saudi Arabia’s Energy Minister Khalid A Al-Falih on Saturday to Gwadar to inspect the site allocated for a multibillion oil refinery in the port city suggest that Riyadh and Islamabad are giving the final touch to reaching agreement for a Saudi Aramco Oil Refinery in Pakistan. Reports say that Saudi Arabia will be investing $10 billion in the proposed project.

Without doubt, this is a major development in the region. The Saudi-Pakistan relationship, which has been traditionally close and fraternal, is moving on to a new level of dynamism. The Saudi investment decision can be taken as signifying a vote of confidence in the Pakistani economy as well as in Prime Minister Imran Khan’s leadership. It comes on top of the $6 billion package that Saudi Arabia had pledged last year (which included help to finance crude imports) to help Pakistan tide over the current economic difficulties.

Before the overt nuclearization of South Asia in 1998, three major wars between India and Pakistan highlighted the latter’s struggle to bridge the conventional imbalance. During this time, Pakistan’s latent nuclear capability provided an effective deterrent, which served to offset the conventional and nuclear threats from India. However, twenty years since India’s entrance into the nuclear club, followed by Pakistan, conventional deterrence remains integral to the maintenance of strategic stability in South Asia. In view of these developments, this article aims to analyze Pakistan’s strategic direction since the nuclear tests, particularly in terms of its conventional military capabilities.

In discussing the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan at a cabinet meeting on January 2, 2019, President Donald Trump drew a parallel between the U.S. war in Afghanistan and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. “The reason Russia was in Afghanistan was because terrorists were going into Russia,” he said. “They were right to be there.” President Trump went on to say that the war in Afghanistan helped trigger the collapse of the Soviet Union. “The problem is it was a tough fight,” he said. “And literally, they went bankrupt. They went into being called Russia again, as opposed to the Soviet Union.” The public outcry was immediate and animated. In an editorial titled “Trump’s Cracked Afghan History,” the Wall Street Journal responded caustically: “Right to be there? We cannot recall a more absurd misstatement of history by an American President … The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was a defining event in the Cold War, making clear to all serious people the reality of the communist Kremlin’s threat.”

There have been recent reports that the U.S. might pull out around 7,000 U.S. troops—half of the total—from Afghanistan. A capable Afghanistan National Defense and Security Force (ANDSF) and a genuine political settlement with the Taliban, led by the Afghans, is the country’s best ticket to rise from poverty, and America’s best hope for regional stability and security. It is in America’s interest to continue the training, advising, and assisting mission for the ANDSF. Now is not the time to abandon the Afghans and repeat the mistakes of the Obama Administration when it abruptly removed all trainers from Iraq in 2011, paving the way for the invasion by the Islamic State.

It has been reported that U.S. President Donald J. Trump is considering withdrawing a significant number of troops from Afghanistan. Reportedly, Trump has directed the Pentagon to withdraw almost half of the more than 14,000 U.S. troops stationed in the country. While Trump’s sudden desire to withdraw has taken many by surprise, Afghanistan’s neighboring states are flocking to talk to the Afghan Taliban as the insurgent group appears to have gained more weight over the question of who controls the peace process in the country.

It remains unclear whether Trump’s withdrawing troops from Afghanistan is part of Washington’s wider policy for the country. What remains clear is this: the suggestion to withdraw troops has created a new situation that is apparently guiding policies in various capitals in Afghanistan’s neighborhood. Regardless of whether American troops leave in a month or in a year, Afghanistan’s neighbors are making plans to prepare for what comes next after the withdrawal.

Thus, like the bears’ porridge in the children’s story Goldilocks, China’s soft-power efforts have proven either too hot or too cold for some, whereas for others it is “just right”. Finding that “Goldilocks zone” of a “just right” soft-power strategy in the West is arguably one of China’s greatest foreign policy challenges for 2019 and beyond.

The essence of soft power is that one state can get another state to do what it wants through co-option, not coercion. And this is perhaps where China’s soft-power efforts have come unstuck so far in the West: far from relying on persuasion, China’s soft-power strategies have arguably been adopted with something of a hard-power logic, a phenomenon which Christopher Walker and Jessica Ludwig have termed “sharp power”.

Whether it stems from an ingrained Sinophobia or perhaps fear emanating from the uncertainty of China’s rise, there does seem to be an overreaction in the West to China’s capabilities.

China is on the cusp of fielding some of the world’s most advanced weapons systems – and in some cases already has surpassed its rivals, a Pentagon assessment found.

An unclassified report by the Defense Intelligence Agency says Beijing has made enormous military strides in recent years, thanks partly to domestic laws forcing foreign partners to divulge technical secrets in exchange for access to China’s vast market.

As a result of “acquiring technology by any means available,” China now is at the leading edge on a range of technologies, including with its naval designs, with medium- and intermediate-range missiles, and with hypersonic weapons – where missiles can fly at many times the speed of sound and dodge missile-defense systems.

China is cashing in on the demand for armed drones, according to a new Department of Defense report.

China was the fifth largest arms supplier in the world between 2012 and 2016, the report, titled “Assessment on U.S. Defense Implications of China’s Expanding Global Access,” said. The Chinese completed more than $20 million in sales with the country’s second largest arms sales going to the Middle East and North Africa “likely due to the demand for armed” unmanned aerial vehicles.

The report, dated December 2018 but made available Jan. 14, is mandated by law.

The report notes that the drone and armed drone market is a niche market but China is one of the world’s few suppliers.

There’s an extra sub under construction, but no permanent nuclear deterrent at sea — yet.

Western observers have likely underestimated the number of Chinese nuclear submarines in development, but overestimated how many are operational, a new analysis suggests. In particular, only half of China’s nuclear-armed SSBNs appear to be in operation.

Photos of the Bohai Shipyard and the Longpo Naval Facility produced by Planet Labs suggest that “China does not yet have a credible sea-based deterrent,” said Catherine Dill of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. Two of China’s four JIN (or 094)-class subs “appear to not be in operation and are undergoing maintenance or repairs at the Bohai shipyard, suggesting to us that credibility is still in question.”

The DIA’s first public report cites rapid advances, extended reach, and increasing confidence.

China’s military power remains limited and its leaders want no war with the United States, but its desire for regional hegemony, global reach, and advanced technology means the U.S. military has much more to watch out for in the years ahead, according to a new unclassified assessment by the Pentagon’s intelligence agency.

This is the Defense Intelligence Agency’s first public and unclassified report on the People’s Liberation Army’s arsenal and intentions; the agency released a similar report on Russia’s military last year. It arrives five months after the Pentagon’s own annual report on Chinese military power — and two weeks after Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan reportedlyinstructed senior leaders to remain focused on one thing: “China, China, China.”

TAIPEI — Indonesia’s new military base on a remote island chain near the embattled South China Sea will help it deter Chinese fishing boats and their coast guard escorts from entering territorial waters as Beijing expands its maritime claims.

The Southeast Asian country, which has burned Chinese fishing boats in the past, opened its base last month in the Natuna Islands with more 1,000 personnel, Asian media outlets reported in December. The base near the existing port of Selat Lama has a hangar for drones and supports personnel trained for any kind of operation.

Indonesia’s House of Representatives budgeted for the base in 2016, with the house’s deputy chairman saying at the time that the construction should “ensure the country's sovereign right to exploit the area's natural resources,” the Jakarta Globe news website reported.

Chinese trawlers are not the pointy tip of “Chinese maritime expansion,” but do present a genuine environmental challenge to the global community.

To believe the leading international media sources, Beijing is a giant, malicious “Death Star” of sorts, spreading environmental mayhem, political oppression, atheism, economic dependency, and increasingly wielding the coercive tools of a hegemonic power on a global scale. A rather typical rendering in this growing genre was an “in depth” investigation published on the front page of the New York Timesthat described a newly completed major Chinese dam project in Ecuador.

If a hostile power (let’s say Iran, for sake of discussion) appeared to be on the verge of mating nuclear devices with the systems needed to deliver them, Israel might well consider a preventive nuclear attack

Key point: There is no question that Israel could consider using its most powerful weapons if the conventional balance tipped decisively out of its favor.

Israel’s nuclear arsenal is the worst-kept secret in international relations. Since the 1970s, Israel has maintained a nuclear deterrent in order to maintain a favorable balance of power with its neighbors. Apart from some worrying moments during the Yom Kippur War, the Israeli government has never seriously considered using those weapons.

The most obvious scenario for Israel to use nuclear weapons would be in response to a foreign nuclear attack. Israel’s missile defenses, air defenses, and delivery systems are far too sophisticated to imagine a scenario in which any country other than one of the major nuclear powers could manage a disarming first strike. Consequently, any attacker is certain to endure massive retaliation, in short order. Israel’s goals would be to destroy the military capacity of the enemy (let’s say Iran, for sake of discussion) and also send a message that any nuclear attack against Israel would be met with catastrophic, unimaginable retaliation.

Mohammed bin Salman’s effort to burnish his image as a modernizing force of liberal reform knows no boundaries.

On the morning of August 18, 2017, Rana deboarded her Saudia Airlines flight in Munich, Germany, bleary-eyed and clutching a small leather bag. Her husband, a near-stranger whom she had married two days earlier, in Riyadh, with the stroke of her father’s pen, marched ahead of her. As the couple approached passport control, he reluctantly handed Rana her passport, which he had taken before landing. Rana stole a glance inside to insure that the note she had scribbled in the airplane’s bathroom was still tucked between the newly minted pages. The line crawled forward. Rana’s heart pounded. A German officer processed her husband’s paperwork, then waved Rana over. Rana slid her documents to the official on the other side of the glass window. Inside, a short plea, written in English, read, “i want to apply for asylum.” And then, in shaky German, “mein Mann weiß nicht”—“my husband doesn’t know.”

The European Union in 2019 faces multiple pressures, including the controversial Brexit, or the U.K. plan to leave the EU; trade issues between the union and its partners; the migration crisis; the growth of populism across the region; and a shaky relationship with the Trump administration. Wharton finance professor Joao Gomes and Garret Martin, a lecturer at the American University’s School of International Service, shared their perspectives on the challenges the European Union faces this year for a series titled “2019: A Look Ahead” on the Knowledge@Wharton radio show on Sirius XM. (Listen to the podcast at the top of this page.)

The most urgent issue is Brexit, and on Tuesday, British Prime Minister Theresa May’s compromise proposal to leave the EU by March 29, 2019, all but collapsed as British MPs voted out her revised Brexit deal that aimed to smooth the exit process. It had already suffered a heavy defeat on Monday, when peers in the House of Lords rejected it in a 321-152 vote. May’s Brexit proposals have faced strong resistance from not just the opposition Labor Party but also within her own Conservative Party over the years, endangering the survival of her government on several occasions. Immediately following Tuesday’s vote, Labor Party leader Jeremy Corbyn tabled a no-confidence motion to debate the incompetence of May’s government on Wednesday. Meanwhile, May said that she will engage in talks with opposition parties about alternative Brexit solutions.

The Pentagon has said China is using its expanding military, trading and infrastructure network to pursue global leadership in a report that warned that its global ambitions could undermine the security of the United States and its allies and threatened international economic corridors.

Monday’s report assessed China’s military and non-military expansion efforts, such as the “Belt and Road Initiative” and the “Made in China 2025” industrial strategy, and their implications for America around the world.

It coincided with another detailed assessment by the US Defence Intelligence Agency on Tuesday, which said China’s drive to acquire cutting-edge weaponry – including nuclear bombers and a space-based early warning system – was intended to establish itself as a global military power.

In December 2017 US President Donald Trump shifted the focus of US national security policy away from terrorism to make “great power rivalry” with China and Russia his main concern.

In November 1973, at the end of the Yom Kippur War, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger made his first visit to Cairo to meet Anwar Sadat, Egypt’s president. America was in the process of withdrawing from Vietnam and Richard Nixon was in the throes of the Watergate crisis that would soon drive him from office. The new secretary of state wanted to conceal the appearance of American weakness with effective Middle East diplomacy. To establish his credibility with Sadat and a broader Arab audience, Kissinger told him, “I will never promise you something I can’t deliver.”

Mike Pompeo would have done well to follow Kissinger’s example on his first visit to Cairo last week as secretary of state. Instead, in a speech to an Arab audience he promised the world—and will surely deliver much less.

Running a trade deficit is not new for the U.S. It’s been mostly running trade deficits since the 1970s. However, this trade imbalance has recently become hotly scrutinized. Much of the concern stems from a fear that trade deficits lead to declines in manufacturing sector employment.

In a recent Regional Economist article, Assistant Vice President and Economist Yi Wen and Research Associate Brian Reinbold explored why the U.S. runs a trade deficit, why manufacturing employment is declining and how these two are related. They also looked at the trade relationship with China, which is the largest supplier of goods to the U.S. - and by extension, its biggest creditor.

The long-running U.S. trade deficits and the emergence of China as a major creditor nation are largely the result of two economic forces, they wrote:

The rise of the U.S. currency and U.S. government debts to become the world currency and a global form of liquidity and store of value following the collapse of the Bretton Woods system